Seven Thorns
by rwbybomb21
Summary: Seven unrelated drabbles, all pairings, all FxF, all Ruby. I don't own RWBY. 'The twinkle in her eyes when she looks at me, the sound of her laughter, the way she hold my face in her tiny hands...love'.


**Summary: Ruby Rose, an eighteen year old bartender, is spotted by the resident beauty after an incident.**

**Drama/Romance.**

(^^^^^^)

Her hands moved at supersonic speeds as her onlookers watched on in awe; somehow, Ruby never seems to cease to astound them, making them all shake in pleasure and leave satisfied. She threw the bottle in the air, immediately grabbing a glass and holding it beneath the falling bottle expectantly, and just as the bottle landed on the glass, about to shatter it; Ruby grabbed it and in one motion, spun it in-between her fingers as the liquid from the now opened –"How did she do that?"- Bottle fell out, her pouring the contents out and passing the now full glass to the patron.

"This...is amazing; Junior's lucky to have you, Red." Blake smiled softly at her sister, the only person she would allow to make her drinks; since Ruby got the job, she's been showing others around her how mature she can be...and how fast. Blake fully supported her, helping her get the job in the first place.

Red was her bar title, given to her on her first day of work by Junior, her boss. Of course, Blake knew her as simply Ruby, but since she was at work, her job title had to be used; no personal ties and all that.

She simply smiled, as she always does. "Thanks Blake. So, you seen Weiss around?" she inquired, her eyebrow raised.

Blake looked downcast. "We're...taking some time away from each other; her work and my art are sorta getting in the way of things." Ruby simply patted her sister on the back.

"Look, you'll pull through, you always do." Ruby smiled wider, if it was possible, when Blake smiled.

"Yeah, thanks."

Ruby simply shrugged, getting back to her mixing drinks and serving customers with a smile- that was one of the reasons she was a favourite among Vale; bartenders that actually meant what they said were pretty rare, and those that enjoyed their jobs made it better for the customers' usually terrible days.

Ruby was known for her smiles being contagious, after all.

She heard the door to the bar open and close, but paid little mind as she scrubbed the table down, removing what looked like stale vomit and drops of alcohol.

That was, until a patron shouted her name. "Red! Look who it is!" His name was Jaune; nice guy, if a bit flirty.

Ruby looked up with a smile on her face, until she saw who it was; and her smile slipped.

Cardin Winchester was known for his...excessive bullying, and that extended to those outside the rich and famous, like his family were; Winchester Automobiles were the largest automotive salesmen in Vale, and often he would use his name to get what he wanted...Ruby simply didn't like him because that meant he would do what he wanted to get what he wanted for _free_.

If there was one thing worse than a bully, it was a bully that preys on those that actually do something useful with their time.

She tried her very best to plaster on a smile and hide the forming grimace when he walked over, his two lackeys at his sides; Dove and Sky. Russell was the only one who actually worked for a living, but he still joined in on the bullying of honest people.

She tried even harder to hide the forming scowl when she smelled the alcohol lacing his very aura of being.

"Hi! What you having?" Ruby never had to fake her enthusiasm before; that is until Cardin entered her life- forget that, every single bartender's lives. She was friends with some of them from Vacuo; Lie Ren was the one who taught her how to do a Menagerie Tornado.

He slurred when he talked, but it only served to disgust her further of what he spoke. "Well, cutey. I'll have you..." he then began to chuckle, and hiccup at the same time.

Ruby crossed her arms over her chest in a defiant manner, her smile slipping. "Sorry sir, but you either order something, or you leave."

Cardin tutted. "If that's da way you wannit..." he leaned in closer, his breath laced with alcohol. "...I'm ordering you to-" before he could finish, he felt a hard hand slap him in the face, and everyone in the bar stopped, silence crowding the room as they all stared at...Ruby, who had an angry look in her face.

"Out of my bar, or I call the cops." She warned, but her warning fell of deaf ears.

Cardin and his cronies laughed. "Really? Ya do know who I am, don'tcha?" he grabbed the collar of Ruby's shirt, pulling her halfway over the desk. "You're coming with me, slut, or I'll-"

"You'll get out of my bar. Now." Ruby was glowering, she simply hated men like this; good job she played for the other team, and even better job no one, save for her sister, knew that.

It was an intense staring competition, and Cardin could see when he was losing.

Ruby recoiled when the punch landed on her face, making her dizzy and limp. "Heh, all talk and no-"

For the third time this night, he was interrupted, but this time with a smashing punch to the jaw; his grip immediately released from Ruby's shirt as she toppled half-bent on the table.

When he set his sights on the person, he froze; her black hair and amber eyes glared with such passion that the woman could have killed him, incinerated his corpse, put it back together and mutilated it all over again.

To say lightly; she was pissed.

But before she could voice her thoughts, the door opened, and in walked a beautiful blonde; no, in Ruby's eyes, the blonde was...the very definition of beautiful. She was like a goddess, walking in with curves on her waist and gorgeous lavender eyes, a long flowing main of gold behind her and a rather large chest.

Needless to say, she had everyone's eyes on her- well, except for Ruby's, which, for some unknown reason, seemed to annoy her. Today, though, she looked sad.

Yang Xiao Long was a regular customer here, always walking in or out with a bottle. Today, though, she had nothing in her hands except for a little note.

Ruby simply shook her head from the dizziness, shot up and grabbed a glass, cleaning it as Yang took the seat closest to where Ruby works; she always took that seat.

"Hi, Yang; the usual?" Yang's usual consisted of a Strawberry Sunrise, with lemon, gin, half vodka and, as she called, 'One of those umbrella things on the top'.

Yang simply nodded, not having looked at Ruby all the time since her arrival; she could already tell something was up with the tense atmosphere, and when she looked up, she gasped.

Blake was stood there, her hands balled into Cardin's shirt, her eyes gleaming with bloody murder; but when she looked at Ruby when she turned to give her the drink, she could practically see red- there, on her right cheek, was a massive, forming black eye.

She put two and two together, but before she could even do anything, her drink was put in front of her; she had never turned down a drink before...but this was different.

She shot up, her eyes from lavender to red and in one swift nod to Blake she dragged the guy out and literally threw him to the curb. When she walked back in, she glared at the other two miscreants with him, and just like that, they vanished.

Yang turned her eyes to Ruby, who was partially shocked, and was dabbing at her swelling eye with a cloth to keep the bruising down.

Her drink was still there...

...and she ignored it, again.

She went straight to Ruby, gently lifted the cloth form her eye and grabbed her drink, pouring the alcoholic content onto it and looking back at Ruby, speaking for the first time since she got in here.

"This is gonna hurt, okay?"

Ruby nodded, and Blake took her leave when Weiss called; she shouted it to Ruby, but the girl was entranced with Yang's eyes.

Lavender was her second favourite colour- red was her first- and the way they shined with care when she looked at Ruby like that...they were dazzling, radiant like the wearer of said eyes.

Then she moved her eyes to Yang's lips; crinkled into a thin line, with a half-smile at the left side, and a concentrated tongue sticking out of the right. They were full, red, and looked as soft as they would probably feel, but Ruby...could feel something. Something was happening to her, something...different.

She had felt this feeling many times before, with others –such as Nora. They broke up a measly two weeks ago since Ruby thought they had something special and Nora was just, as she put it, 'bi-curious'. Ruby gave up on looking since then, and when she first saw the blonde walk into her bar two days later, she just...couldn't look at her that way.

But now, here she was, tending her wound, smiling as she did so with a caring yet sad look in her eye; Ruby had seen this sad look before, in herself, in her reflection many times when a crush she knew couldn't love her back.

Dejection.

She was about to question it, when Yang finished, moderately pleased that she had stopped the swelling and reduced it to a mere blotch of darkened skin on perfect snow white.

Without thinking, yang placed a kiss upon Ruby's cheek, just beneath the no longer swelling eye, and smiled as she whispered. "All better..."

Yang awkwardly got up when she realised what she had done, and more awkwardly sat at her regular chair- it had her name scratched into it and all.

Ruby just coughed, and the redness dusting her cheeks was gone, replaced by her usual smile; Yang knew the smile all too well- it was that same smile she used to get information out of people, to help them when they come into her bar feeling down.

Yang knew she couldn't fight that look, so a half-truth wouldn't hurt...right?

"So, Yang...what's eatin' you?" Ruby spoke quietly as the rest of the bar buzzed with excitement again, none of them willing or able to talk about the excursion that just happened.

Nobody wanted to talk bad to their favourite bartender, anyway.

Yang just sighed. _'There it is, that question...' _"Um...well, I kinda like someone." She sunk down as Ruby passed her a drink of watered down beer. She looked up curiously.

"...On the house." Ruby said with a cheerful smile. She could se yang ready to argue, but Ruby simply lifted her hand and glared almost motherly. "No buts!"

Yang just grumbled as she sipped her beer, smiling; Ruby could make the shittiest beer in town taste like some fine wine.

Ruby grabbed a chair that was hidden behind the bar table and sat opposite Yang. "So, who's the lucky guy?"

Yang just shook her head. _'...Moment of truth.'_ "No guy..."_ 'Damn you truth!'_

Ruby got the idea instantly. "Oh, right. So, who's the girl?" she leaned in closer, wiping down the bar as she listened to a flustered Yang.

"W-Well...can I not say?" Ruby just nodded. "Right...so, I like her a lot, like, really like her..."

Ruby just looked at Yang with a smile. "So, what's the problem?"

Yang buried her arms into her face. "I don't know if she swings my way, y'know?" then, yang got the greatest idea she had ever had. You can figure out a lot by a person's dates. "Have you ever been in something like this?"

Ruby looked sad. "Yeah...we dated for a little while, but turns out she was just a little curious..." Ruby shook off her sadness. "So, any other problems with the girl, aside from that?"

'_We play for the same team? Yes! But now I just need to find out if she's single and if we can talk later on, when she finishes her shift...' _"Yeah...she's uh, different than the other people I've dated. Usually they're all just people who last a week. But..." Yang was unable to finish, so Ruby took a guess.

"She really means a lot to you, doesn't she?" _'Why do I feel...sad?' _

Yang nodded with her smile back as she exclaimed everything, her mind on autopilot. "Oh yeah, she's cute, and funny, and she smiles a ridiculous amount for times...she's just someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, you know?"

It wasn't supposed to be a real question, just rhetorical, but Ruby couldn't help but answer in a sombre tone. "Yeah...I don't know. I've felt that way around so many people, you know? I keep searching for the one I think will be that one, but...the all just leave." Suddenly the conversation turned around into Yang comforting Ruby, not the other way around. "I just don't want to be lonely anymore."

Yang was shocked, but whispered silently. "I'll be that one." Sadly, Ruby heard.

"W-What was that?" she needed to hear that, just one more time to make sure she hadn't misheard.

Yang was swearing on the inside, cursing herself for saying that at all; but she can't go back now, might as well risk it.

"Is there, err, somewhere private we can talk?" Yang was fidgeting, and Ruby just sighed sadly; she thought she heard her say...never mind, she led Yang to the back of the bar- but not before waving Velvet over to cover for her-, to a small room decked out in red and black, a bed in the middle and a small computer to the side, with a big window sitting to the right of the room, taking up two thirds of the wall.

Ruby undid her apron and hung it on a peg close to the door they entered in, and as soon as the door closed, Ruby walked over to her bed and sat down, urging Yang to sit next to her. She did, somewhat shakily, and breathed a raggedy breath; her in close quarters with the one person she liked was practically hell.

Ruby turned to her, smiling a half-smile that Yang didn't think suited her. "So, what did you say?"

Yang decided to see if she could play this off, get herself out of the embarrassing situation. "I didn't say anything." She was good at deflecting questions, only if they were needed to be deflected.

Yang didn't know that Ruby was scowling until she looked back at her. "Then why did you want to talk privately if you said nothing?"

Yang was caught. _'Only one way out now...'_

"I...said...I'llbethatone!" she blurted it all out in one, nonsense sentence, and Ruby couldn't understand it.

"What? Speak slower, Yang." Ruby had lost her scowl, replaced by a neutral face; she needed to hear it, even if it wasn't true...

Yang shot up, angered and frustrated. She tugged at the ends of her blonde hair while she shouted her words out; thankfully the walls were soundproof. "I said I'd be that one, okay!?" she paced as she spoke, unaware of the effect she was having on Ruby's lonely heart.

"I'll be that one you were talking about; I'll never let you go alone, never let you be sad, never make you cry, never, never, never leave you."

Ruby was staring. "Yang..."

"No! Just...let me finish this, okay?" she breathed. "I think you're beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, and cute. You make me laugh and cheer me up just by looking at you and my heart thuds like a jackhammer and...You're that girl, Ruby; you're that girl I was talking about!" her breathing was uncontrollably fast, her heart, thundering in her chest, threatening to escape. But she continued. "You shouldn't be sad Ruby, because I will never leave! Ruby Rose, I love-"

She never did get to finish that sentence, because a pair of soft, velvet lips with a sweet taste- strawberries, her frazzled mind noted- pressed softly into her's, quieting her and causing her to, unconsciously, lean backwards- despite common mistake, Ruby was pretty talk for her age. She had her eyes wide in shock, before they turned to disbelief, then finally bliss. She was lost in the feeling so much that she didn't feel the hands around her waist dragging her in closer, her chest against the other girl's.

Ruby pulled away, breathing heavily, borderline panting, while Yang regained her breath.

"Yang, thank you."

Yang was confused. "Thank you...?" she repeated, questioningly.

Ruby just sighed, her grip on Yang's waist tightening slightly. "Thank you for being the first person to actually mean those things."

They stayed in silence before Yang broke it, breaking away from Ruby, an awkward smile on her face. "So...are we...?"

Ruby just shook her head. "Only if you truly meant all those things, Yang."

Yang looked at her with mock-hurt, holding a hand over her heart. "You wound me, madam!"

Ruby just sighed.

"Okay, okay..." Yang steeled her face, looking serious; this surprised Ruby- she had never seen Yang serious. "Listen, everything I said was true, everything. I truly love you, Ruby."

Ruby just broke down, tears streamed from her face as she launched herself at Yang, kissing her all over while muttering the words 'thank you', with each kiss searing into Yang's cheeks. Ruby felt truly loved, truly happy and elated, that crying was the only way to let out the negative emotions, to make way for these new ones. She truly hoped what Yang said was true, but she, somewhere in the back of her mind, already knew...

Yang just grabbed Ruby and gently eased her down in the bed, Ruby's head on her shoulder while Yang stroked her hand through her new girlfriend's hair, muttering whispers of calm words into Ruby's ear as she gripped her tightly.

She strayed a hand over Ruby's bruised face, and frowned as she hugged her tighter, feeling Ruby hug back, sniffling into Yang's shoulder. The sniffles turned to soft breathing, indicating she was asleep.

Yang could feel herself slipping into sleepiness, and the last thought she had, was this:

'_I'm going to make sure all of those things I said were true, every last thing. And if anyone hurts her, there's nowhere in hell or earth that can save them'. _

She woke up the next day with a smile on her face.


End file.
